(The madness lies) Under my bed
by weaksoul
Summary: John's therapist thinks he's barmy. So does the monster under his bed. AU Monsterlock


AN: This is currently a one-shot, but might get more chapters if people ask for it. As it is, this can stand alone just as well.

John sighed deeply. The day had been a bit much, if he were honest. After the war, the everyday things were overwhelming. Everybody seemed to expect things from him, crushing him under their collective wishes, their demands he be what they want him to. At the clinic, he was to be a doctor; he was to help people no matter his personal feelings. In the evening, at the restaurant or at Sarah's place, he was supposed to be caring, gentle, friendly, normal. Boring. And his therapist was probably the worst of them all, because she should _know_ that he wasn't any of those things, that he was broken beyond relief, an outcast in this peaceful world and yet she still wanted him to become ordinary again.

He almost wished he was back with the guys in Afghanistan. The blood, the terror, death, all of that he could live with, because they didn't want him to be anybody but John Watson, army doctor. They had understood, because those men were like him in many aspects. The ceiling was white above him, white as his mind in this time between evening and nightfall. John could hear the car horns complaining outside, Mrs. Hudson walking around in her kitchen, the faint buzz of people talking on the street. The only thing he had brought with him from the war were the nightmares. They came when he needed to feel safe, drowning him in adrenaline and fear, echoing gunshots in his ears. He saw the red-white-yellow heat of the sand, felt his blood leave his shoulders, the unbelievable pain.

"Aren't you forgetting someone?" The voice was muffled but annoyed. He didn't like being forgotten about. "After all, you didn't _only_ bring the nightmares." John snorted.

"You're not real," he informed the voice sternly. "Ella says you're just a hangover from the trauma." John wished that telling Sherlock he wasn't real would make him go away. Unfortunately, this particular figment of his imagination was rather persistent. And didn't like to be told that he wasn't actually there.

"Your therapist is wrong," Sherlock said haughtily. "She's wrong with almost everything she's told you so far. Noticed that your limp isn't going away? It's psychosomatic, and believe me, _I_ should know. I live in your head most days, and it's not a nice place. Dull. You ought to build me a palace there." John sighed. Sherlock... had been a mistake, but his five-year-old self hadn't noticed that until it had been ten years old and Sherlock had not left. The bedspring squeaked protestingly as he turned so he could stare at the wall. Shadows were creeping in from the edges of the room, the setting sun painting them in muted hues of orange. The imaginary friend protecting him from the madness of childhood and preschool had originally been nothing more than a big dog, an animal in whose fur he could bury his nose and hide his tears away. John had always been too short.

But the war had changed the dog that had been forgotten sometime during his med school years. All the violence, the blood, the horrors had made another kind of company necessary, and Sherlock had gone from nice, old dog to annoying human. When there was a battle, Sherlock jumped around gleefully and deduced things about his enemies John might have never otherwise noticed, whispered strategies in his ear that saved lifes. When John tried to sleep, Sherlock would talk to him, his deep voice a background humming, white noise needed to relax. Of course the damned bastard hasn't been nice in forever. For some reason John's new imaginary friend was a real arse.

"Sherlock, shut up," John muttered, but his words had no bite.

"You need another life, John. This is killing us, killing me! I am out of your mind with boredom! London is a big city, surely we can find something to _do_!" For emphasis, Sherlock kicked the bedframe and John felt the wooden planes digging in his back. He hated it when Sherlock was bored. He'd develop weird habits, like spray painting a smiley on Mrs. Hudson's wallpaper. And John got blamed for it. Nobody would ever believe his bloody imaginary friend was actually _real_. In a way, at least. Most days, nobody could see Sherlock. But when John got bad, when he couldn't stand reality, boring, boring routine, the clinic or life as a whole, Sherlock would appear and scare the hell out of everyone. He was tall, taller than John (this made sense, even when he had still been a dog Sherlock had been huge), with dark, untamed curls and high cheekbones. His skin was pale as a sheet, like he didn't get enough sunlight (which he didn't, he spent most of his life either in John's head or under his bed), and the dark coat he donned made for a dramatic twirl. All of this was human enough, but in addition Sherlock had two ebony horns curving along his skull that ended just an inch behind his ears and a thin tail with a puff of equally curly hair at its end. Usually, John would hurriedly stuff the tail under Sherlock's coat when he appeared, but the horns were more problematic. John had taken to imagine Sherlock wearing a brown deerstalker, which irked the man to no end. Sometimes, Sherlock was only a black-and-white shadow, a phantom of a man, and those days were better, because only young children could see him. Other days, he was gloriously colourful, with a purple top and elegant black trousers, his hair more ebony than black. Those days John spent alone, in the safe seclusion of Baker Street.

"Sherlock, this _is_ my life now. I can't go back to Afghanistan, remember? I was shot." He felt a pang of sadness at the admission. Afghanistan had been good, despite the whole war going on. Interesting, full of challenges. Not the coughs and colds and the occasional pneumonia he got here.

"This is London, John! The city of endless possibilities! How can you be so dull?!" The shadows had conquered the last of the daylight, and John was lying in the darkness of London's night. Occasionally, the floodlight of a car would cast thin lines of light on the ceiling or his wall. Out of the shadows, Sherlock grew. First John could only see his shape, a vague shadow forming on the wall wearing a coat. Then came his mass of curly hair, a gesturing hand, pacing feet. After only a minute or so, the shadow became three-dimensional, disengaging itself from the tapestry, and John could hear the soft sound of Sherlock's footsteps. "See? Here I am, in the middle of-" Sherlock seemed to struggle with the adjectives, unable to find a word that aptly described the boredom that was John's life, "-in the middle of _this_-" tearing at his hair, he took another three steps, reached the wall and turned around to start pacing again "-with nothing to do!" John sat up wearily.

"I know, Sherlock. It's driving me crazy, too. You're in colour today, by the way." It was barely noticeable, just a hint of wine red on his shirt and trousers too light to be black. His black tail twitched with restless energy.

"What does it matter? It means you're going mad, too. We're phoning Lestrade." Decision made, Sherlock strode out of John's bedroom, leaving the man staring at the closed door. He was going to remember that Sherlock actually needed to use those things at some point. Not tonight, though. And who was Lestrade? John knew that Sherlock was the part of him that paid attention, that saw all those tiny little things most people could never notice, and made the deductions. Maybe he had met this Lestrade person somewhere? Shaking his head, John left his bedroom and found Sherlock in their (he never thought of it as his own anymore) living room, mobile pressed to one ear.

"Yes, yes, this is Sherlock Holmes. No, we haven't met, you know my..." Sherlock glanced at John, standing in the doorway with his eyes barely open. "flatmate." At least he didn't introduce himself as John's imaginary friend anymore. That would have been awkward. After a pause, Sherlock's left hand came up in the air in a frustrated gesture. "John Watson, yes. I'm aware he's your doctor. No, I'm not mad, though I might get bored enough to shoot something. Someone. Whatever." John could only stare. Sherlock looked as real as any human he had ever met. And he pointed at something. The violin that was lying forgotten in a corner of the flat, near the window overlooking Baker Street. John frowned. Sherlock huffed an annoyed breath and mimicked playing it.

"I can't play the violin, Sherlock!" John protested. Lowering the mobile for a moment, Sherlock hissed, "Of course you can, you moron. I know you can. Well, I know _I_ can, so you have to be able to, too. Play!" He returned his attention back to Lestrade on the other end of the line. "No, that was John. He's annoying. Dull. Not much going on in his-" Hi listened for a moment. "Yes, I know what time it is. Eleven p.m. Now why don't you tell me about that murder that has Scotland Yard so agitated!" John had just taken the bow and eyed the instrument warily, but at Sherlock's words he almost dropped both.

"What murder, Sherlock?" he hissed.

"The murder D.I. Lestrade was so upset about at the clinic two days ago!" Sherlock explained. "It's exciting! Something to do! We can learn things, John, and we won't be bored anymore!"

"Wait, one of my patients was a detective? Which one?" John was still trying to figure out what Sherlock was going on about.

"Oh, you know, graying hair, black jacket, white shirt, awful tie? Had pneumonia from waddling around in the rain," his imaginary friend explained absent-mindedly.

"How do you know he was a detective?" Sherlock sighed and spoke into the phone, "John is deliberately slow tonight, detective. Can we come by tomorrow and have a look at the victim? What? Oh, me. I'm a consulting detective. Help the police when they're out of their depth. Like now. Or any other time, really. No, no need to pay me. John takes care of that. Yes, thank you. No, John didn't... well. I knew you were a detective the second you came into the room, obviously. Your stance was military, but lacked the rigidness I see with John, so not army. You didn't give any personal information, at least no important information, and the way you told John about your pneumonia just screamed police: You left out most of the important bits, but there was water from the Thames on your jeans, so you had been at the docks, which nobody in their right mind goes to if he has another choice. Except if they're homeless, but your shirt was ironed and you're still wearing a wedding ring. Your wife is cheating on you, by the way. Should ask her about the work hours." John listened in awe. All these things he remembered having seen, but his conscious mind hadn't made the connections. Sherlock had. He remembered Lestrade's soft eyes with the core of steel hidden in them now, and that he had thought him to be from the army. "Wonderful! We'll meet you at the morgue at seven tomorrow." And the self-proclaimed detective snapped the phone closed and grinned happily at John. "See? How exciting! We'll solve a murder, John!"

"How is that gonna work?" John asked, confused. "Nobody but me can see you. How are you going to tell anybody what you -we- see?" Sherlock nodded.

"You know I'm not your garden variety imaginary friend, right, John?" He nodded. "I didn't disappear over time -thanks for keeping me hidden during med school, by the way, all that nonsense would've made me go crazy way earlier- as I should have. And as I am not normal, that means you aren't, either. You've read about people like yourself, John. The scientists call you Worlddancers." John frowned.

"Worlddancer? I've never heard that word before," he replied. Sherlock shook his head and took up pacing again.

"Yes, you have. Seriously, John, how do you find anything in that brain of yours? I had to look for it for over a week! First thing we do is make you a palace and organize the chaos in your mind so that I can find things again. It's in one of those journals on psychological illnesses you read eight years ago."

"You remember stuff I've read eight years before?" Sherlock inhaled deeply, looking for all the world like an adult dealing with a particularly slow child.

"Of _course_, John! That's the _point_!" Sherlock's tail was flicking up and down rapidly. It made John rather dizzy just looking at it. "A Worlddancer is a person who can bend reality. Now, usually, Worlddancers just go crazy, because their monsters and nightmares aren't just their vivid imagination. They're all real. Guess why you never die in your dreams? If you died, you'd be _dead_. The monsters you make up could actually kill you. But!" Sherlock flopped down on the sofa and let his legs dangle over the edge. "You have me. I protected you from the monsters. You imagined a protector, and when I was no longer needed, I became a... helper instead, somebody to defeat the boredom. You've added layer by layer to my personality, until I was too real."

"Wait wait wait," John interrupted and sat down next to Sherlock. He felt utterly lost in the flood of feelings washing over him. "You think you're real?" And then, "Ad so are the monsters in my nightmares? I think I'm delusional."

"You're not, John. I am not completely real yet. You need to give me substance, a form I can wrap around myself. Then I'll be my own person." The detective sounded oddly wistful.

"You want to be, don't you? So you can walk around whenever you want to. To get away from me."

"No. No, I never want to be away from you. You created me, you idiot. You're the reason I exist in the first place. But I could actually protect you. Fight the boredom, the loneliness. Hold your hand." John swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat.

"What... what do I do?" Sherlock leaned over and grabbed the violin.

"Give me music," he said.

And John got up and started to play.


End file.
